Murakami's Cabbages

Lately, I've been reading some of Haruki Murakami's shorts. In one of his essays, he said that in order to be a writer, we need to live first. He went on to talk about how he only started writing again at 29.

According to him, he needed the seven year gap after college to just "live actually". He said that back in his college days there was so much he wanted to write but when he sits down, he can't put his ideas together. 

For so long now, I've been struggling with the same thing. I watch by the sidelines envious of the works of people my age or younger. I started writing poetry when I was about eight. I think it had something to do with the national flag. I also kept a notebook of my poems from when I was 10 to 16. 

When I went to college, there was so much to learn. I met a lot of inspiring people from my creative writing class. They stimulated... no... they challenged me to work harder. So when I was 17, I was able to write a handful of poems that aren't that bad. 

Things changed in second year. I've found it increasingly harder to write. It is a frustrating thing to wage a staring war with a blank sheet of paper. Just when I think that there's something good to write about, the whole thing escapes me when I sit down and try to write. 

I really can't figure out what's wrong with me. But hopefully, I'd have that baseball field moment Murakami had when he was 29 so I too could finally sit down and write again.